CSME: window to the world
published: Tuesday | February 1, 2005

By Dionne Rose, Staff Reporter

Moss-Solomon

JAMES MOSS Solomon, chief corporate affairs officer at Grace, Kennedy and Company Limited, says the CARICOM Single Market and Economy (CSME) provides partnership opportunities to businesses in the Caribbean to conquer the global market.

"It is much easier to have a joint-venture agreement in another country than within your own territory. It is the strategic partnership that is possible in the CSME that makes it important," Mr. Moss-Solomon suggested at a forum on the 'International Trade Agenda and the CSME', held recently at the Mona School of Business, University of the West Indies, St. Andrew.

The CSME provides partnership opportunities for us to look outside of the immediate area of the CSME into the global arena," he added. "We are all very small, there is no firm in the Caribbean that is within the top 1,000 in the hemisphere (and so) we need to have joint ventures like these if we are to have hemispheric outreach, which will be made possible by having alliances," he stressed.

LEGISLATION BEFORE ACTIONS

Responding to the argument put forward by some that all the legislation was not in place for the CSME, Mr. Moss-Solomon argued that in many instances, worldwide legislation preceded actions. An example, he cited, was during the 1980s, when there was the proliferation of 'higglering', which forced the prime minister at the time, Edward Seaga, to put provisions in place for this type of business and then rechristening them as ICIs.

Mr. Moss-Solomon also said that many firms in the Caribbean were doing mergers and acquisitions without the requisite legislations in place. An example of some of these mergers, he said, were the merging of Barclays Bank and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) to form First Caribbean International Bank, the merging of Trafalgar Commercial Bank and George and Brandy to form First Global.

ACQUISITIONS

Acquisitions that have taken place he said, included the Trinidadian-based Republic Bank of Trinidad and Tobago (RBTT) acquiring Union Bank of Jamaica, and the Trinidad Cement Company acquiring Carib Cement in Jamaica.

"This is what has been happening; companies have been merging; companies have been taking advantage of the opportunities, which are presenting themselves through trade, although not fully legislative," he said.